Sex, secrets, and Surgery provide the impetus for abstract body-referential sculptures, photo-based collage, and installations created as emotional repositories to life situations which cannot be changed. Growing up in the Midwest, raised by a Southern Belle and a NY prep- school Catholic; proper manners, keeping the “dirty laundry” hidden away, and repressed sensuality are important underpinnings to my work.

I create voyeuristic invitations to visit uncomfortable situations with desire and embarrassment towards the body. Manipulating sexually loaded materials — spandex and pantyhose, bits of lace, porcelain, and gel medium — provocative forms question viewers perceptions. Organic shapes allude to creases and folds of the body. A dichotomy of seduction and revulsion exists, where fragments are re-constructed to become assemblages of grotesque beauty. Hand-sewn production is simultaneously an act of aggression, catharsis, and remembrance of surgeries, illnesses and my role as a caregiver.